20/20

9:30pm Thursday, May 24 on TV2

Treat yourself to a rare glimpse of the behind-the-scenes workings of Shortland Street in a special edition of 20/20.

After being granted unprecedented access to the production of New Zealand’s favourite serial drama over the last six months, this special episode sees Erin Conroy follow a week in the life of Pua Magasiva (Vinnie), while Emma Keeling gets a chance to star on the show and Hannah Ockleford examines Shortland Street’s impact on New Zealand society.

9:30pm Thursday, February 9 on TV2

Reporters Sonya Wilson, Emma Keeling, Erin Conroy and Hannah Ockelford are back for 2012 to bring you more of the best of New Zealand and American current affairs with 20/20.

Combining hard-hitting investigative reports, newsmaker interviews and compelling human interest and feature stories, the 20/20 team will bring you more of the stories that change lives.

For the second year in a row TVNZ has won 3 of the 4 Aotearoa Film and Television Awards (AFTA) for outstanding craft in News and Current Affairs.

At the AFTA Craft Luncheon in Auckland this afternoon 20/20 cameraman Martin Anderson was presented with the prestigious Joe von Dinklage Memorial Award for Best Current Affairs Camera. This is the second year in a row Martin has won the award. 

“The AFTA Craft Awards are very special because it’s really the only time we get to recognise the work done by the extremely talented people who work behind the camera – their craft and professionalism is outstanding,  and it’s fantastic to see that recognition officially from the judges,” said TVNZ’s Head of News and Current Affairs, Anthony Flannery.

“It’s been the biggest year for news in TVNZ’s history, and our team has given it everything.

“They’ve worked on rolling deadlines and under immense pressure over the past 12 months to deliver vitally important stories to New Zealand and it’s great to be able to take some time today to say thanks to them all.

“I believe they’ve delivered a world class service to our viewers and we can be very proud of their efforts”.

BEST NEWS EDITING – PAUL SPARKES, ONE NEWS

ONE News Special Report – CCTV

BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS CAMERA – MARTIN ANDERSON, 20/20

20/20 (TV2) – Rite of Passage

BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS EDITING – NICK REID, 20/20

20/20 (TV2) – Sitting on a Killer

The Best Current Affairs Camera is the Joe von Dinklage Memorial Award. Joe was the cameraman who drowned when a helicopter carrying Paul Holmes and a Holmes TV crew crashed into the sea at Anaura Bay in 1989.

The AFTA Awards gala event is being held on Saturday night at Auckland’s Viaduct Events Centre. 

The parents of Hayden Smith and Aaron Miller have spoken in depth for the first time to TV2’s current affairs show 20/20 about the pain of losing their sons to the illegal methadone trade, and their anger towards a scheme which allows recovering drug addicts to take the drug outside controlled environments. 

Reporter, Pete Cronshaw, spoke to Hayden’s father, Mike, and Aaron’s parents, Shaun and Linda, about the ‘take-away’ scheme that allows the lethal drug to be consumed at home by addicts, which critics say increases the capacity for it to be on-sold as a result.

“It’s a death that should never have happened,” says Aaron’s mother, Linda Murphy. “There should be no methadone that can be taken out of the chemist. Laws need to be changed. Otherwise it’s going to happen again.

“All of these junkies that sell it off, all they want is the dollar, they don’t give a sh*t about what happens to the person that they give it to.”

Robert Steenhuisen, head of Auckland Community Alcohol and Drug Services, told 20/20 the organisation works hard to ensure illegal drug trades are minimised.

“There is a black market for methadone, and a lot of other pharmaceuticals that is true, and our task is really to try to minimise the opportunities for the black market as much as possible … as far as I know we are reasonably successful in that.”

But Steenhuisen says he is aware of the risks the ‘take-away’ scheme poses for teens such as Hayden and Aaron.

“Methadone is definitely a dangerous drug. It can only be taken by people who have a tolerance to it. If you take methadone and you don’t have a tolerance to it and you take too much of it, then you are highly likely to overdose.”

And for Mike Smith, the overdose that caused his son’s death is clearly still too much to bear.

“I miss Hayden so much, he was my only son. Until you lose a child, you don’t realise how bad it is. That doesn’t go away. Every single day he’s still there.”

9:30pm Thursday, February 24 on TV2

TV2′s signature current affairs show, 20/20, returns to screens this week and takes a look at the harsh reality of becoming a man in Papua New Guinea, and the brutal and bloody processes that makes military hazing look like a picnic.

Different tribes have different initiation ceremonies. Some, like the Sambia, poke sharp sticks up the noses of young boys until their blood runs freely. This process, a kind of male menstruation, is repeated regularly. The boys are then forced to ingest the ‘male milk’.

Male initiation ceremonies are shrouded in secrecy but they are a compulsory step to manhood.

In March 2003 Kiel McNaughton, star of Shortland Street, married his Papua New Guinean love Kerry Warkia. They have two children, an 8-year-old son called Apeal and a 5-year-old daughter, Vavaki.

Now Kiel is under pressure to take his son back to Rabaul in February and subject him to a secret tribal initiation ceremony. He has no idea what pain and suffering Apeal will endure.

Would you let your child do it? Could you stand idly by and watch your 8-year-old son be force fed, beaten, whipped, slashed, sliced from head to toe or have arrows repeatedly shot into his tongue?

20/20 has been invited to accompany the family back to Papua New Guinea and document Kiel and Apeal’s blood initiation.

TVNZ presenter and news anchor Miriama Kamo is set to leave New Zealand to take up a role in Germany.

Kamo, who fronts 20/20 as well as presenting One News bulletins intermittently, will leave for Europe in January where she plans to live and work in Germany for six months.

TVNZ confirmed to Dan News that they are currently seeking a 20/20 replacement for Kamo.

The experienced broadcaster was also named as one of the possible replacements for departed Breakfast presenter Paul Henry on the TV One morning show.

Source: Dan News

It’s more solid programming from TV2 in 2011 with some excellent content.  The only thing obviously missing was any sign of new local shows on TV2.  

Check out the list of shows and trailers below.

New Shows

Shit My Dad Says

Off The Map

The Walking Dead

No Ordinary Family

Mike and Molly

Haven

Hot in Cleveland

Better Together

Happy Endings

Chase

Returning Shows
Desperate Housewives
Two and a Half Men
The Big Bang Theory
The Mentalist
Grey’s Anatomy
Private Practice
Cougar Town
Brothers and Sisters
The Middle
Hell’s Kitchen
American Idol
The Vampire Diaries
Scrubs
The Amazing Race
Gossip Girl 

Returning Local Shows
Shortland Street (With another feature length episode) 
Go Girls
Neighbours at War
Police Ten 7
Rescue One
Motorway Patrol
20/20 

9:30pm Thursday, July 1 on TV2

There can be few events more terrifying than a plane crash, and tonight’s 20/20: Special Edition looks at what happens to those who survive in the aftermath.

Introduced by Miriama Kamo, the special documentary meets survivors of some of the worst commercial crashes in aviation history – individuals who have cheated death by the slimmest of margins and crawled out of the wreckage to tell their tales. Alongside dramatic archive footage of the actual crashes, survivors tell their heart-stopping stories of survival, and heart-warming tales of recovery and personal redemption in the years that follow the crashes.

Mercedes Ramirez Johnson was on a plane that slammed into the side of a Columbian mountain in 1995. It was described a non-survivable event, but she lived to tell the tale.

“Panic just erupted in the cabin,” she recalls. “You could hear people crying, you could hear people screaming, you could hear parents trying to calm down their children. It was just mayhem.”

Kelly Moore was another air crash survivor – a flight attendant on board a plane that ended up at the bottom of the Potomac River just minutes after take off in 1982.

“I never would have imagined anything like that in my wildest dreams. I’ve said to people I wouldn’t have been a flight attendant if I thought that would have happened.”

However, the incident had an astonishing effect on her life subsequent to the disaster.

“I feel like being in the plane crash saved me – because I had a second chance at life.”

Both Mercedes and Kelly went on to make profoundly positive changes in their life as a direct result of the crash they were involved in. Tonight’s 20/20: Special Edition offers a life-affirming look at what it means to survive.

If you have missed this episode of 20/20 Special Edition, it will be available free online 12 hours after the show has aired on TV2. Go to tvnz.co.nz and click the ‘ondemand’ button.

Usually 20/20 stories are quite ‘freak of the week’ and the teaser for this week’s story on breastfeeding older children definitely had that feel. But I was pleasantly suprised. The story was well balanced and covered the experience of two mothers and even the memories of two women who could remember being breastfed as older children. They avoided the typical hysterical criticisms of extended breastfeeding such as it being disgusting or feminising boys, but they did ask the 5 year old some interesting questions about when he would stop feeding. It was great to hear from the horse’s mouth, as it were, about what being breastfed as an older child is actually like. One of the disturbing elements of this is how the children knew that what they were doing would be frowned upon. Should children feel social pressure at such a young age to be acceptable? Especially when doing something so natural and that communicates love between a mother and child.

One area that was weak was the facts surrounding breastfeeding in New Zealand in comparison to the rest of the world. We actually have very low rates of breastfeeding overall and a huge drop off after 6 months. Where as in other, non-western countries it can be normal to breastfeed until after the age of two. It would have been good for there to be some discussion of this as it shows the huge impact that culture and lifestyle have on breastfeeding. Also there were a number of images used from old documentaries which were not relevant to the story and alluded to the sterotypical image associated with breastfeeding older kids.

It was refreshing to see normal, everyday women breastfeeding their 3 and 5 year olds rather than the stereotypical image of either the way out hippy or the woman from some exclusive sect. Maybe over time more images in the media of breastfeeding, no matter the age of the child, will normalise breastfeeding and help improve the low rates of breastfeeding in New Zealand. Now that’s a way to save some money in the health system!

Not everyone breastfeeds, not everyone breastfeeds that long, but isn’t it great that it can be a choice and wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were the tolerant society we often profess to be and supported both children and mothers to carry out their relationship in the way they see fit.

Tomorrow night 20/20 will be doing a story on breastfeeding older children. I know a couple of the families and am committed to breastfeeding my own daughter so I am really hoping for a balanced and positive story. I am so sick of sensational rather than factual coverage of breastfeeding children, despite all the research to support it and the fact that it is a normal way of living in so much of the world. Only in the overly sexualised west do we seem to have a problem with it.